New Years Trail Work - Krug

Would anyone be available to put in some trail work time at Krug on New Years morning?
I plan to be up there at 8 am. We will be clearing some new short sections of tie in trail just below the area where the haunted forest takes place (Tom Bennett trails) and possibly a few short sections of trail to tie in the old tree house trail. Also plan to take out the bridge planks at the bottom of the tree house trail and move them to the new location where this trail is being re-routed to.
Great way to start off the new year and as many of you have said, now is the time to be doing this work.
CH

What's Next?

Hey everyone…
I’m excited and thankful about everything you guys are doing up at Krug. The timing appears to be near perfect as I have had a few recent discussions with city staff regarding the possibility of sponsoring some type of annual bike festival in an effort to promote the city’s park system as well as community wellness. In my opinion, Krug Park is the ideal location for the center of activities. I’m thinking in terms of XC racing, a starting/stopping point for road racing, trials comp/demo, beginner clinics, live music and food… or perhaps awards, music, food, videos, raffles, etc at the civic arena after the races whereby alcohol could be served/consumed, since it’s illegal in the parks.

Please understand that I don’t have the authority to make promises or commit resources on behalf of the City of St. Joseph. Staff has asked for my input and will likely rely on that input when making decisions as it pertains to the city’s involvement, if any. At this point, it appears that Parks and Recreation Director, Bill McKinney will have to grant permission as it pertains to many key aspects of bike related activities in the parks. Naturally, the city council may have some involvement depending on the nature and extent of city finances and other resources. I believe some of you may have worked with Mr. McKinney on various elements up to this point.

I have not spoken with him regarding the use of Krug Park for a bike related festival/event. I would like to make sure that all of us are on the same page and fully supportive of all activities that may be pursued. I think most of you know that my interest is in observed trials, thus I would like to pursue that aspect of the big picture, however I will not go it alone as I believe biking venues and events are made better by complimenting activities. I believe that perhaps the biggest part of growing any sport is reaching out to the spectators who, depending on what they see and hear may decide to get involved themselves… especially the kids… pull them away from the video games.

Simply put, not everyone wants to sit around watching a trials rider like me struggling to get over a rock and not everyone wants to stand beside a trail waiting for an XC rider to come by… but, when you put everything together and provide options, people start to feel the “Vibe” that all of us love. How many times have you heard people say, it wasn’t the race or the comp that made it cool, it was the before and after, it was the people, the whole scene, the “Vibe”. Thanks to many of you, St. Joe now has an awesome trail system that keeps getting better.

So, here’s my question for all of you… and responses are needed… Would you support this type of event and be willing to meet with and speak to the necessary people to get the wheels turning? My sincere apologies if this is something that you’re already working towards and I just haven’t heard about it. We must have a unified group approach with as many supporters as we can get… even if it’s just someone willing to say, “Yes, I would like to see this in St. Joseph.”

This post is not intended to be all inclusive by any means. Just wanted to get the discussion started in a format that everyone can view and provide input. Again, I make no promises on behalf of the city, nor has the city committed to anything at this point. Given the current economy, there’s no telling what kind of support there may be in the coming months.

I'd love to sit down and have a face to face discussion with everyone at some point if possible.
Thanks.
Ed

Patient Anticipation

before the sunrise, when the first light breaks over the horizon and twilight begins to bring the scenery back to light.... the cold is deep in us. too cold to shake off, and all we want and need are those warm rays of light to stir us back to life.

but it doesn't matter how cold we are. it doesn't matter how much we want that sun sent warmth. and we can only position ourselves to a point - and then there is nothing more we can do but sit quietly in the twilight; waiting for the light to come. we can do nothing to speed the ascending salvation we need so badly. we can do nothing but fill ourselves with silent patience and the faith that our sun will come to save us from the cold.


And then the Sun Bursts over the Horizon. We feel Invigorated, as though we had Never been so close to freezing. We Forget the pain radiating through our Bodies as the cold night draws to a close and the Warmth of a New Day Bathes The Earth with Love and the Heat of Life.

A Whole New Perspective is in Play NOW. The problems of the cold night are an unpleasant memory, but seem Distant and Unreal NOW. The World is Filled with Colors. There is Music from the Birds and Squirrels, and things are so Different than they were just a Moment Ago. And the Priorities Change, and The Soul Changes, and the Person Changes - for Another Day; We Press Forward TOWARD ANOTHER NIGHT. Toward Another Night. toward another night. toward another night. toward another night

where it's at

when do you feel lost and small?

where do you find quiet solice?

where do you find beauty?


where do you find peace and joy?

is there a right answer for everyone?

for anyone?

do you know your answers?

are they same today as they were yesterday?

somehow we keep moving forward toward the answers we believe in today; and maybe tomorrow. forward toward a desired experience, a desired person, a desired object, or a desired feeling. sometimes our ships find port. sometimes they don't. and yet we sail on. on through the questions and toward the answers of a new year.

Merry Christmas!!

I hope Sata brought you all new MTB parts and toys...

Shirts, Wood & Move

First things first the jerseys are getting the final designs finished. I need everybodys sizes and know who's in on the cross/mtb/road team. There will be some expense to the jerseys but with all the donations (thanks Craig/Larry) it will be less though. Next week we will have a sample jersey. Next I'm moving locations next month so sorry to be lacking on trail building but I needed to get things rolling for the new shop. Since I'm moving I have lots of wood in the back room that needs to be moved to Krug. That should be a good modivation to get bridges built, I'll let you know when we will have a bridge day. Once all the lumber is at Krug we need to get them done before Buba moves crap around on us. We have a generator now to run power tools and maybe two soon so we can tackle two bridges at a time. If Lance want to bring his thats three. I like Craig's ideas on the Krug routes the only thing I would like to add would be a little more on the tree house trail.

Time of Year to be TRAINING!!

It really sucks to think about, but now is the time get your training into full gear to come out guns a blazin come spring.
I read this post from Cornbread out of Lincon.. Pretty interesting..
I know Dr. Allen Smith out at Performance Plus can test your VO2 Max if your interested...

Your VO2 Max is what is is though, I would rather focus on increasing our anaerobic threshold.... That is where we are going to make the most gains... I know there are tons of resources out there, so post what works best for MTB....

Here you go, its a (rather) short read....


Recently, I did a metabolic stress test (often referred to as a VO2max or a cardiopulmonary stress test) on a local elite athlete. The test results were outstanding for this individual. In fact, the results were some of the highest that I’ve seen on a test subject. The only other one higher was on a classmate of mine in grad school and he was a Division I cross country star. The results were also significantly higher than I’ve ever achieved.
The test got me thinking about the basic physiology of an aerobic athlete and what makes one faster or more powerful than another. Why are some individuals “natural” aerobic athletes while others struggle to hang on to the back of the pack?
WARNING! Geekdom at it’s finest approaching
VO2max is the ability to consume oxygen and utilize it for aerobic glycolysis. The muscles use oxygen in aerobic glycolysis to break down stored carbohydrates and eventually produce ATP (adenosine triphosphate). The high energy phosphate bond in ATP is what allows muscles to contract.
Man, I wish I had a syringe of ATP to inject into my legs during cross. Kinda like nitrous oxide for your legs. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t work and would probably kill you.
Anyways, back to the nerdy stuff, if the cardiovascular and pulmonary system cannot sustain the volume of oxygen required by aerobic glycolysis, the body will begin to call upon anaerobic glycolysis to help keep up with the muscle’s demand for ATP. Aerobic means with oxygen and anaerobic is without oxygen. Anaerobic glycolysis isn’t as efficient as its bro aerobic glycolysis and only provides a fraction of the ATP from the same amount of carbohydrate. So anaerobic glycolysis is kinda like the friend you call as a last resort to pick you up from downtown when you’ve had too much to drink. You really don’t want to go there, but you have no choice.
Anaerobic glycolysis results in lactic acid (actually lactate and hydrogen ions) as a nasty byproduct of producing those valuable ATP’s. That’s the familiar burn we’ve all felt on numerous occasions and especially during cross country races, crits and cross. So as the body is unable to provide sufficient volume of oxygen to the working muscles through aerobic means, the balance swings from aerobic to anaerobic glycolysis. As a result the muscles and lungs begin to suffer. Eventually if a person “red lines” for too long the muscles will shut down. The hydrogen ions from the lactic acid combine with bicarbonate ions and form carbonic acid which spontaneously dissociates into water and carbon dioxide. The increase in water isn’t such a bad thing, but the increase in carbon dioxide eventually has detrimental effects. A lot of folks don’t know this, but carbon dioxide is actually what triggers us to breath. Not a lack of oxygen.
Now there are several ways one athlete can be superior to another in various physiological systems which leads to a higher VO2max. Huge lungs help. Also a great diffusion capacity (ability to transfer oxygen and carbon dioxide to and from the lungs and the blood) is vital. Any kind of pulmonary disease (asthma, bronchitis, emphysema and smoking) can hinder the delivery of oxygen to the blood.
After the lungs come the heart and vascular system. Having a big strong and efficient pump (heart) is also critical, but if the plumbing is shitty the delivery of oxygen is hindered. Atherosclerosis (heart and vascular disease) will narrow those arteries and make them less compliant and impede delivery of oxygen rich blood. Pressure is also higher in small pipes which can lead to greater endothelial insult and subsequently more atherosclerosis. It’s a vicious cycle.
Now once at the starving muscles, AVO2difference (arterial venous difference) is the next critical physiological variable. The AVO2difference is simply the difference in the oxygen content of the arterial blood and venous blood. The arterial blood drops off oxygen to the working muscles and become venous blood (artery away from the heart and venous towards). The venous blood goes back to the heart and then the lungs to pick up more oxygen and start the cycle over again. Some individuals have higher AVO2differences than others. This was the great debate when I was in grad school. What is the deciding factor in a high VO2? There was the central theory (the big pump – heart) and the peripheral theory (AVO2difference). I personally think you gotta have both, but there really is no way to easily measure AVO2difference potential. The heart can be assessed rather easily with echocardiogram, CT and even catheterization.
Some folks just have better genes for dropping off oxygen. If you got Norwegian genes, consider yourself lucky. The highest ever recorded VO2max results were from Norwegian cross country skiers. Records for VO2max are 96 ml/kg/min for men (Bjorn Daehlie) and conflicting records for females, but most state 80’s. Greg Lemond was 92.5 ml/kg/min at his peak and I’ve read that Lance was near 94 ml/kg/min. Just to put it into perspective, dogs used in the Iditarod can be as high as 240 ml/kg/min. Just think how fast you would be if your Mom was a canine. Maybe Dr. Moreau was on to something.
Bottom line is the really great aerobic athletes are the ones who were given great genes from their parents. A lot of one’s ability is predetermined at birth. Training can dramatically improve initial performance, but once an athlete is trained it is very difficult to increase the VO2max.
Now once the VO2max is determined, the one thing that can be shaped to increase performance is anaerobic threshold. I’ll save that discussion for another day.

Proposed Krug Loop

For those of you who are familiar with Krug, this is my take on how we can make one long loop out of it. Some of the washed out gulley areas need to be re-routed, bridges need to be built, several existing sections need to be completely blocked off, a few new sections need to be flagged and several new sections are currently being rough cut. We have purposely tried to steer clear of the "haunted forest" area as much as possible as they seem to do whatever they want for their precious few weeks every year.
The goal is to make one long loop, eliminate as much as possible the confusing intersections and short cuts and to make this trail as single speed friendly as possible while still maintaining much of what we had in the past.
Also, I am not a fan of building trails just to build trails and I don't think we really need to add much more in the way of length to Krug. I for one do not look forward to maintaining much more than what we currently have with the Corbies, GSC, the Brownie, Krug and Sun Bridge.
Maybe if more people would get involved with trail maintenance I could see building more but at this point with the limited number of people willing to pitch in I just don't see the point.
Krug will never be an "easy" place ride and in my opinion that is not a bad thing. What it will be is an extremely fun trail that will provide as good a work out as you could ask for around these parts.
We could use all the help we can get with this as it is a pretty major undertaking. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them here.
CH

Now THAT was a good night ride!

I first want to apologize for my lack of eloquence/elegance with my writing. Lansen is SOOOO comfortable with his mangina that prose seems to effortlessly spew forth from his pie hole.

Crook and I started out last night riding downtown, as I saw a bike come in the shop from Corby North that contained most of the topsoil that we so diligently try to preserve. We made our way out to the casino where I told the security guy we were NOT gonna leave $3k worth of bikes outside for some butthole to take. After some 10 minutes of waiting they let us put em inside in a storage room. We had a very mediocre buffet and commenced to ride(Dave) and walk/push(hippie) up the long Highland/Waterworks dirt hill into the bluffs at about 8:30. The trail was getting frozen and not really muddy at all except where there were those f'ing leaves! The views of the Kansas side were amazing with the bright-ass moon along the middle trail. There are now even more of those landscape timbers across the main trail. The trail now may last longer than we are alive, but it sure makes for a sore ass. We rode through Krug w/o any problems and saw all the lights strung throughout the park. We came through the first tunnel on the roadway and the cars were all backed up. We took the right side and started passing with pleasure until the glare ice reared it's ugly head in the corner. I thought for sure we were gonna pull one of Dave's patented 2 wheel drifts and plow a car or 2, but it never happened. We then made our way to Corby North and found it to be perfect. The tracks from the earlier soil-sampling ride were very evident. With Dave's light and my legs and lungs fading fast, we went back to the shop and loaded up.
I am sorry now that I didn't do more night rides this year. Commuting to work at 4:30 am is technically riding in the dark, I guess, but somehow just not the same. Point being is that if you arent Dave or the hippie you missed out! The night-riding hippie

Night ride on Friday anyone?...Beuhler...Beuhler...class...

Mr Crook and myself are going on a nightride Friday night at 6:30 pm from Corby to wherever the money takes us. We can't stay out too late, as trailwork at Krug happens Sat morn at 8:30 a. and lights only last 6 or so hours. The I-wish-my-lights-were-brighter hippie.

Trailwork Sat morning?

Any of you buttholes up for some work? Krug needs more lovin. 8:30 if you want, top of the hill through the Jurassic Park rocks. RT